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March 31, 2010 • 5:38 PM

SO SHOOT ME STAND UP FOR STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

So Shoot Me: I ❤ Street Photo

Protest exhibition at various London locations including Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and Hoxton Square.

Indoor exhibition at The Book Club,
100 – 106 Leonard Street, Hoxton and Shoreditch, EC2A 4RH

Thursday, 8 April 2010, 7.30pm onwards

Free

It seems to be the season for artistic protest, so don’t miss your chance to appreciate and assist in the work of So Shoot Me, a 30-strong band of street photographers who will hold a one-night guerilla photography exhibition across London: I ❤ Street Photo.

Photo: Steve Gong

I ❤ Street Photo will be an open-air exhibition to demonstrate against the impending government restrictions being placed on British street photographers, including the Information Commissioner’s Office new guidelines and Lord Mandelson’s controversial Digital Economy Bill. Instead of protesting in the conventional sense, the ‘So Shoot Me’ group will be projecting…

From twilight on the evening of Thursday, April 8, the So Shoot Me members will begin popping up in busy spots all over London with their human light show. The impromptu I ❤ Street Photo exhibitions will be projected onto a screen of handheld white boards, and show the best of new British street photography, out in the streets where it was made.

This unique evening of ‘roaming human projection’ will celebrate new street photography and express concerns about the survival of British street photography in the face of ever-increasing government controls.

Following the high profile cases of police misuse of section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, in which photographers and tourists have been prevented from photographing in public places, ‘So Shoot Me’ aim to illustrate that street photography is an important document of the world in which we live, and not a crime.

Also on the ‘So Shoot Me’ photographers’ agenda is the controversial and widely-criticised Digital Economy Bill – legislation that the government claims will equip Britain’s creative industries for ‘the digital age’, but which amongst other things will strip photographers of much of their copyright.

The Dark Lord Mandelson

Lord Mandelson’s Bill, which is being unashamedly rushed through parliament before the general election to avoid proper debate, includes Clause 42, which introduces Section 116B to the Copyright Act. The clause gives the Secretary of State the authority to transfer copyright from one person to another, without the owner’s consent.

If the Bill becomes law, it will become allowable for works labelled as ‘orphaned’ – meaning that their original owner cannot be instantly traced – to be copied and used, even for commercial gain, as long as a licensing fee is paid to a specially established government agency

The government claims that photographers would then be able to reclaim the fee from the agency, if they discover their work has been used, however photographers fear that they may simply lose control over the copyright of their own work.

Celebrating all that is beautiful, thought-provoking and spontaneous about street photography, I ❤ Street Photo carries the message that misdirected fears about terror, privacy and child protection could spell the end for the whole genre.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Greenfield, Indiana. 1960

Henri Cartier Bresson, seen by many as the ‘father of street photography’, once said, ‘We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth can make them come back again.’

It seems he wasn’t wrong: photographers’ rights are vanishing, and once lost, they might never be reclaimed.

Hyde Park, London, 1937